Rest Assured
by nycgrl
Summary: He had never felt as nervous and as much of a fool as he did that night in her room. He supposed that’s what people think of when they think, the things we do for love. RLNT, COMPLETE


REST ASSURED

by nycgrl

Disclaimer: I don't own _Harry Potter. _

**Warning: HBP spoilers!**

_Dedicated to my once and future beta, Sinead Usagi!_

* * *

He walked into her room, with damp hair and bare feet, and felt quite naked. 

He found her twirling her wand in frustrated obstinacy, guiding some wrinkled clothes from her bed into her closet, where they collapsed in a deflated misery. She growled a bit before turning to see him in the doorway. Her demeanor changed instantly.

"Remus!" she grinned. The clothes (among other things, from what he could see, some quills and an open pack of Oreos) she was currently working on dropped suddenly in midair. She gave them a sideways, annoyed glance, and turned back to him.

"Done with your shower, then?" she asked, with a shy (shy?) smile. He nodded. "I was just tidying up," she continued, and bent over to retrieve her fallen belongings, as if just remembering them now.

"You didn't have to," he answered, though he really thought that if she hadn't, he'd most certainly have had to sleep on the floor.

She gave him a look, and walked to her closet with an armful of miscellaneous. She stuffed everything in with contempt, a quickly slammed the door shut. Grinning again, she turned back to him. "So what do you want to do?"

He shrugged a bit, suddenly feeling very conscious of his hands and their placement. He left them to hang at his sides, but they felt incredibly heavy and their stillness wearied him. "I don't know, what do you want to do?"

He felt pretty stupid for that.

She half-shrugged too, but hers was an unconscious one. "Well, I thought maybe we could read? You know, if you want."

"Sounds good," he replied a little too quickly. Reading he could do. "I'll go get my book…" he said, grateful that he had thought to bring over his book, which he had left downstairs.

"Actually," she interrupted him; "I already brought it up for you." She gestured to her dresser, where his book was on top of scattered pieces of makeup.

He walked over slowly and picked up his book. "Thank you very much," he said. She beamed.

He stared at his book a bit, growing aware of the silence. He tried to think of something to say then, but she saved him from the emaciated comment he would have had to come up with.

"Right or left?" she said, and he didn't know what she meant. "The bed," she continued, matter-of-factly, "which side do you want? I like the left, myself, but either one…"

"I'll take the right then," he said, walking tentatively toward the right side of the bed. He got on it, his legs stiff and spread out as he sat upright against the headboard. He was still holding, really clutching, his book, in his hands.

She was quickly in bed next to him, leaping on and crushing his arm a little. "Sorry," she said airily, and reached over to her bedside table to produce a book of her own.

He raised his eyebrows a little, and discreetly tried to read the title. "It's _Night of the Inferi Resurrection_," she said cheerily and somehow reading his mind, "absolutely brilliant."

He nodded, but secretly thought it didn't sound so "brilliant".

"Oops, where are my—" Tonks started to say, and leaned over to rummage through her nightstand drawer. "There." She reappeared with a pair of glasses and smiled widely at him.

"Do you like them? I'm practically blind in my left eye. Vision charms help, but they wear off so quickly and they're a huge bother. Anyway, I like how glasses look."

He nodded _yes he liked them_. It felt strange to be in bed next to Nymphadora Tonks in her oversized Weird Sisters t-shirt and a pair of reading glasses.

"And what are you reading?" she asked, "I didn't look at it before."

"_Ancient Sumerian Arithmancy_," he answered, already flipping through the pages to find where he left off.

He was irked when she replied, "Oh. Sounds boring," and proceeded to open her book and become instantly engrossed in it. He wanted to tell her that it wasn't boring, but he thought about it for too long, and the moment to say it passed. Feeling distinctly unsettled, he sighed and turned to his book to start reading.

He could barely get through the first sentence on role of arithmancy in Sumerian ceremonies when his mind began to wander on the strange situation he was in.

Only a week ago, Dumbledore had died. Only a week ago, Tonks professed her love for him in front of everyone. When she rejected everything he threw at her, he told her he didn't know how to be in a relationship, how to be a boyfriend. He was no good for any of that. She responded, _First time for everything_.

From then on, things went swimmingly, as swimmingly as things could go in the midst of a war and when someone like him was involved. He felt cautiously happy until she asked him, yesterday, if he'd like to sleep over at her apartment. And strangely enough, that's what floored him.

He'd never slept with Tonks before. Well, sure, he'd _slept_ with her, all the just-sex sex they had somehow tangled themselves up in two years ago and despite his diligent suppression, became more, but never slept _sleep_. It was usually sex, and then he rolled off her, or vice versa, and someone would leave, usually him.

In many ways then, sleep in the sense of _sleep_ was a lot more intimate, a lot more relationship-y (he almost shook his head; that's a word Tonks would make up). Snoring and side-by-side feet and pajama pants, taking turns to brush your teeth, and Remus grew afraid. But in a rare sense of bravado perhaps, of solidarity and the word _ephemeral_ came to his mind, he agreed.

He had never felt as nervous and as much of a fool as he did that night in her room. He supposed that's what people think of when they think, _the things we do for love_.

He was viciously jarred from his thoughts when Tonks gave a small shriek next to him. He looked, to find her hand over her mouth, and her eyes wide in terror.

"Tonks?" he asked, a bit worried, but more so confused.

"Shh!" she silenced him, without taking her eyes off the page. "The Inferi just ate the main character's girlfriend's brother's brains," she whispered, as if she were any louder, the Inferi would come and find _her_.

"You know, Inferi don't actually—" but he stopped, because she wasn't listening at all.

He tried to concentrate on his book, but found at after almost an hour, he barely read three pages. It proved difficult because, as he discovered, Tonks was an avid reactor to books. At every other page almost, she reacted with shrieks, gasps and urgent messages such as, "Don't go in there!" or "You idiot, you're going to get it now".

About an hour after they started reading, and after he finished his sixth page of the night, he noticed that something felt strange. Realizing that all the sound effects had stopped, he turned to the woman next to him, to find she had fallen asleep, book flat on her stomach. The only sounds coming from her were the light snores that regularly escalated a wayward piece of mousy brown hair.

He smiled a bit, and forgot himself for the first time that evening. He gingerly reached over and took off her glasses, and collected her book from her belly. He placed it all on the bedside table on his side.

"Tonks," he said, in a low voice. "Tonks, wake up."

"Hm?" she opened her eyes, and blinked sleepily. "Oh," she yawned, "Sorry, books always make me sleepy."

"You want to go to bed, then?" he asked, closing his own book.

She nodded, and mumbled, "Cella nox," and the lights went out.

He started to lower himself onto his pillow when he felt a light kiss on his lips and a sleepy "g'night" in his ear. Moments later, Tonks was snoring again, while he was still staring at her dark outline.

Finally, he plopped his head down on his pillow, his arms at his side and staring at the ceiling. He felt her arm casually drape over his chest, and he turned onto his side.

Unsure of himself, he started to lift an arm and hesitantly lowered it onto her waist. She snuggled closer to him and he relaxed a bit.

He was starting to fall asleep too when he heard her say, drowsily, "It's good, Remus. We're doing good."

He wanted to correct her, we're doing w_ell_, but just smiled and went to sleep.

FIN

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AN: First post-canon RLNT, woohoo! I wrote in my very first Remus/Tonks fic, "Wouldn't Remus and Tonks rock together?" and reviewer responded, "I'm not so sure they would". Well… everything speaks for itself, and much face-rubbing ensues. 

Please review! They really do brighten up my day!


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